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V-Ray Ptex Normal Displacement

Disney’s Ptex technology means that 3D artists should never have to spend endless hours on UV-map our models for painting/texturing. Autodesk Mudbox 2012 and V-Ray 2.0 for Maya has Ptex built in, so we can already start using this amazing technology. One thing is to get ptex textures painted and rendered, but another is to get normal displacement working. I had some troubles with this, and with the help from the Chaosgroup forum’s and their support guy Vasil, I managed to get it working.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Import your model into Mudbox, sculpt it however you want. Once you’re finished, go to Mesh>Ptex Setup and turn your model into a Ptex model.

2. Export your low-level mesh (level 0 or 1, or whichever you want) as an obj or fbx

14. Click on the black color square (Minimum Value) and set these values in the HSV areas: H=0 S=0 V=-5 . Then click on the white color square (Maximum Value) and set it to this value: H=0 S=0 V=15. These are arbitrary values, so they can be adjusted to your specific value. You could always just set them to -100 (min) and 100 (max).

15. There you go, render and all should be well!

It’s amazing how well Ptex works with V-Ray and Maya. This will shave of hours and hours off your production time!

Doh, its under the VrayPtex node. But, I still am yet to get this to work. I have followed every step but the subdivs are not showing up at render time. Do I need to set v-ray subdivisions on via the extra attributes like you do on the other (non-ptex) tutorial on your site? Thanks!

The process seems buggy and is not working nicely at all. You have to play a lot with V in minimum and maximum value, to have something similar to real sculpt. It seems that vray is ready for ptex with color information, but not ready for efficient ptex displacement at all.
Thank you for you tutorial anyway